‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,’ Season 2, Episode 2: ‘Resonance’ Recap ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lee and Keiko investigate a secretive village with a cult devoted to a mysterious creature. Cate crosses paths with a deadly stowaway.

This episode begins with a roar. It’s King Kong. Kong is knuckle-running down a valley into the ocean. He goes waist deep into the water before stopping, beating his chest and roaring. Remember, Krakilla has just escaped. Cut to Old Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) escaping Skull Island in a helicopter.

Keiko asks, “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

Old Lee says, “About the same as coming back from a three-day pass in Manila. It’s a hell of a lot better than last time. Did you see it? Did you recognize it?”

Hiroshi asks, “The Titan? You’ve seen it before?”

Old Lee isn’t happy returning to Outpost 18 and Monarch. The helicopter lands, but so does a Trilobilla.

In the ocean, a whale’s size is dwarfed by Krakilla. Then we’re in the command center of Outpost 18. They are “nine clicks Klicks out, heading two-eight-seven at 35 knots.”

What does that mean? “Right into the South China Sea.” The important thing is: “What’s the status on the evac?”

“Birds are home. All personnel secure on board.” Of course we know there’s been a stowaway.

With Verdugo dead, who’s in charge? Tim. That’s right, Tim. Does that make any sense?

“The Deputy Director is off the board.”

Tim asks, “Off the board? That’s what you call it?”

That’s when Tim learns, he’s “next in the chain of command.”

Tim insists that they need to talk to Director Barris. That’s impossible because “The comms are down.”

Why? Because “The storm wall off the island is throwing out a wicked EM field.” So the satellite uplink is offline and there’s no ETA on when it will be fixed. Do you know what that means? No one knows about Titan X, Krakilla.

Into the control room comes Old Lee who wants to know why they aren’t moving. Krakilla is at the edge of their range. Old Lee demands to know who is in charge.

Tim wants to wait for orders from Washington.

Old Lee declares, “We don’t have time for bureaucracy. If that makes landfall in a populated area, you’re looking at another G-Day.

Tim reminds Old Lee, “You took over a Monarch outpost by force, and you put the whole world at risk. Not to mention that none of us would even be here if you hadn’t dragged Cate Randa down to the Rift with you.”

Old Lee defends himself, “Whoa, whoa. I didn’t drag Cate Randa or anybody else anywhere, but at least I had a plan. What’s yours? Cocktails on the Lido deck?”

Tim’s plan is: “We follow it. You send out the alert when we get clear of the island. so stay close enough to keep contact, but not too close, okay?”

Where is our little chittering creature, Trilobilla (supposedly a “scarab”)? It’s climbing on the ceiling of one of the hallways and then goes into a room and closes the door.

Elsewhere, Kentaro asks Hiroshi, “You’ve been over this a dozen times.”

Hiroshi responds, “And I’ll keep going over it until I find out what went wrong.”

Kentaro reminds him, “Hey, you saved your Uncle Lee.”

“He hasn’t been my ‘Uncle Lee’ for a long time,” Hiroshi says. “We unleashed a Titan.”

“We didn’t know that would happen,” Kentaro says.

“It doesn’t matter!” Hiroshi says.

“You didn’t push that button,” Kentaro reminds him.

“We should’ve never pushed that button,” Hiroshi says. In the doorway we see the person who pushed that buttons, Cate. She goes away.

“You blame me,” Cate says. Although Hiroshi denies it, she continues, “Then whose fault is it?”

“Why does it have to be anyone’s fault?” Hiroshi asks. “It’s done. We move on.”

“No,” Cate responds. “That’s how you do it. You move on.”

“You blamed me for lying to you, for betraying your mother, for keeping my life a secret. That’s what brought you here. Blame me,” Hiroshi says. Cate walks away and now she’ll have a meet-cute, but not with a man. She bumps into someone going to sick bay. He hears something strange. The creature is on the ceiling and suddenly pounces on that guy.

Remember Santa Soledad in Chile, 1957? We’re back there looking at the walls of a sacred cave. Billy is using a flashlight to examine the drawings on the wall. Keiko and Young Lee are at the pier. those boats look really nice and clean considering the shacks the people live in. Lee says, “Maybe that’w what they’re hiding: a rich fishing ground. Would explain why they’re so suspicious of outsiders.

Keiko replies, “It makes sense. What I want to know is: What is enriching these waters?”

Billy rejoins them.

Lee says, “Hey, there he is. Thought you’d never come out of that cave.”

Keiko asks, “Billy, Take a look at this. There’s so much phosphorus and nitrogen.” But Billy isn’t interested because it is time to go. That’s because Billy has found a map on the wall in the cave. As Billy understands it, it is a migratory route.

“I think it charts the path that it takes around the world,” Billy explains. “It’s not here any more because it’s already moved on. So we need to go back to Santiago, recheck the maritime archives for any correlation with likely MUTO encounters along the route. Shake a leg. We’re on the hunt.”

“Billy, I spent three weeks, seasick in a stinking tramp steamer to get to this place,” Keiko complains. “And I think there could be something going on here.”

Billy insists, “That map just might show where it will be and just maybe, we can get out in front of it, but we got to get going.”

Keiko refuses. “Billy, we run all around the world checking out every rumor and myth you hear, and I never say a word when you want to follow a story, but now you’re dismissing me because I want to follow the science.”

Billy says, “I would never dismiss you. So, so, you can stay…we’ll divide and conquer. And you’ll probably find something that I would never see in a million years.”

Lee says, “In my professional opinion: If you’re going, we should all go…Guys, I mean, we need to stick together. Again, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, the locals don’t really want us around here.” And remember, they did say they would leave once shown the caves. “They specifically asked us to leave.”

Keiko insists, “But that’s why we need to stay. This means something and if we turned around every time someone tried to spook us..just don’t go.” But Billy insists.

Billy kisses her and says, “I love you.” Keiko kisses him back and says, “I love you, too.” Young Lee watches and then we’re back to Outpost 18 in 2017 with Old Lee. “You wanted to see me, Captain?” Old Lee asks Tim.

Tim replies, “I’m not the captain.” So there is no captain? “From Director Barris,” Tim says, pointing to documents on a table. “My orders are to pursue and maintain contact with the unidentified Titan at all costs. All other priorities are rescinded.” Tim hands the documents to Old Lee who tells him, “Congratulations. You made the right call.”

Tim replies, “No, you did Colonel. Most of my career at Monarch, I was just a troll in the basement. I’m not the guy for this.”

Old Lee reminds him that “Some men have greatness thrust upon them. So what’s next?”

Tim replies, “Consequences.” He then reads from another document: Colonel Leland Lafayette Shaw is to be detained and transported to Monarch Headquarters for interrogation and asset management at earliest opportunity. You know what I think Colonel? I think this last one came through garbled.” Tim crumples that paper up.

Have you forgotten about May. May speaks to Cate who is standing by herself, watching over the command center. We learn that according to Tim, everyone was notified when they got back to the ship. May insists, “So you didn’t call her?”

Cate doesn’t even know what she would say. May tells Cate she called her own people and let them know that after two years, she’s not dead. May says, “My family is hiding in a basement waiting for the next G-Day.”

Cate admits, “I should have never pressed that button.”

May says, “We all did it. Me, you, Kentaro, your dad. We all went down there to save Shaw because it was the right thing to do.”

Now we see the fast-moving Titan X, Krakilla. We can only see the dorsal fins breaking the water with the Outpost 18 in the distance.

Back at Outpost 18, while Old Lee is looking through binoculars, Keiko asks him, “What Tim said, about you taking over a base with force, endangering the world. It just didn’t sound like the Lee Shaw I knew.”

“Hey, Kei,” Old Shaw says. “I’m still the same guy I always was.” and he points a finger to his head.

“So, it’s not true?” she asks.

“Well,” Old Lee admits. “Monarch and I had different ways of dealing with things.

“What exactly was the issue?” Keiko asks.

“They were wrong. I was right,” Lee replies. “Things do change. Monarch changed. But don’t get dazzled by all the bells and whistles. They’re still just a government agency. Same as the IRS or the people who go through your luggage at the airport.”

Of course, Keiko has been away so long in Axis Mundi, that she didn’t know they go through luggage at airports.

Titan X is 12 kilometers ahead and increasing. It’s sped up and now moving over 40 knots.

Old Lee says, “It’s almost as if it doesn’t want us to catch it. Can you squeeze any more speed out of this tin can?” They are already at full speed. At this point you wish there was an engineer to call below decks. The engines are rated at 110% and Lee asks for another 10% although that would risk overheating the engines.

Here’s the dilemma. If they follow orders, they might blow out the engines and then they won’t be able to follow the orders. Tim doesn’t want to risk being “sitting ducks” on the ship. There are 200 people. Lee reminds him that hundreds of thousands are in the path, but Keiko notices something else. There are 14 ships straight ahead in the path of Krakilla.

Old Lee explains it is the Strait of Malacca. This is an actual place. The Strait of Malacca is about long, shallow and narrow waterway that connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is situated between Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. It is a high-traffic shipping lane and oil chokepoint that has 29% of the global maritime oil trade passing through. It is the shortest route between China, Japan, South Korea and the Middle East and Europe. At its narrowest point, it is about 1.5 to 1.7 miles. Some areas are only 25 meters or 82 feet deep.

Old Lee explains “That’s hundreds of civilian sailors right there.” This is about where my husband was yelling that they should use the radios to warn the ships.

Keiko decides this is a great time to ask, “What is Monarch’s mission?”

Tim explains, “Discovery and defense in a time of monsters.”

Both Keiko and Old Lee look thoughtful before Keiko replies, “Those are Billy’s words. We tried defense once at Bikini Atoll. And, after that, we decided, that the only way we could truly defend ourselves was to discover. Learn everything we can, never stop chasing the truth, even if we weren’t certain of a way back. Isn’t this why you built this ship? Why you’re all here? Or has Monarch changed more than I realize?”

And so Tim decides to increase speed.

Back in Santa Soledad in Chile, 1957, Billy leaves Keiko and Young Lee as he heads off to Santiago. The head guy of the village, Augustin (Camilo Jimenez Varon) walks up to Lucia (Camila Ponte Alvarez), the woman who in the last episode had been behind the bar and danced with Billy. They realize that Billy left, but Keiko and Young Lee did not. Lucia says she’ll speak to them again. Augustin feels Keiko and Young Lee’s fate is sealed.

Lee and Keiko are already back in the cave. Keiko is setting up sensor in the ground. Lee thinks Keiko is made at Billy, but she explains, “I’m made at myself for being mad at him, okay?” Then she says, “You know, my husband, Hiroshi’s father? He was a good man. Really good man. Our parents arranged our marriage, but he was a good husband.”

Keiko continues, “He was a doctor. During and after the war in Nagasaki. He died right after Hiroshi was born. Cancer. He provided for me. He protected me. The only thing that he could never seem to understand was that it just wasn’t enough. Billy, Billy will drive you mad and drag you to the bottom of the world and suddenly lose interest, but the only thing he cares about more than Monarch is me and you. And that I can be my own person. No matter the circumstances.”

Keiko feels a rumbling. Young Lee does not. Something in the ground is moving, causing a vibration.

Back at Outpost 18, the Old Lee asks the “captain” Tim if there’s “anything we can use against that Titan?” Unfortunately, Outpost 18 is a research and monitoring outpost. “Maybe we find out if it has a plankton allergy.”

Old Lee thinks they can use a drone. It is only armed with a camera or FV12 Hybrid, long-wave infrared for thermal imaging and a sonar transducer for underwater mapping. Keiko realizes that sonar means sound can be used. “We’ve seen this Titan before. We think is responds to sound, subsonic, below the range of human hearing.”

Old Lee explains, “but you can feel it.”

Keiko then says, “If you can use the drone to emit an infrasonic signal,”

Old Lee says, “Maybe we can get its attention.”

Keiko adds, “Or divert it.”

Hiroshi, who has been standing around listening says, “I might be able to modify the pulser setting on the sonar transducer to mimic the Titan’s frequency.”

How much time do they have? Old Lee says, “We have about 20 minutes before the sailors on those ships have a really bad day.”

Back to Santa Soledad in Chile, 1957 with Young Lee and Keiko in the cave. Keiko wonders if they can hire a boat.

Augustin finds them in the cave and asks, “Did you find what you’re looking for?” Lucia joins them as Keiko replies, “We don’t know exactly what we are looking for, but that makes our work exciting.” Keiko then apologizes for “any disturbances we may have caused.”

And Augustin becomes sinister. He apologizes that the village hasn’t made them welcome. That’s because the people of this village have strong beliefs.

Lucia explains that the cave is very sacred to their people. “They’re afraid with outsiders here, the fish, they won’t come.”

Augustin adds, “The old ways won’t die without a fight. We don’t want you to think we are primitive fools. You chose an excellent time to be here. Tonight is our festival. Come. There will be food, music.”

Young Lee wants to leave, but Keiko accepts the invitation.

Back at Outpost 18, we pick up the Trilobilla who is again roaming the hallways, but not it leaves a trail of blood. Elsewhere on the outpost, Hiroshi is working on the pulser with is mother Keiko beside him. “Between 1 and 20 hertz isn’t very specific.”

Keiko suggests having it emit a variable range, but Hiroshi says, “Yeah, but the odds of hitting on the exact signal it responds to…” They share a son and mother moment, touching their brows to each other. Keiko then says, “Billy would have loved all this. He would have been right at home.”

Hiroshi replies, “He was always more at home when he was at work.”

The drone is ready and takes off from the Outpost 18. “The toys are pretty cool, but they’re no substitute for experience and instinct,” Old Lee tells Keiko.

Elsewhere, Cate is brooding in her sleeping quarters. The Trilobilla passes by and Cate doesn’t see it, but hears something. Then she sees the blood trail and sees the Trilobilla on the ceiling. She attempts to use the hallway phone, but doesn’t know how to contact someone. She then gets ready to use a fire extinguisher on the critter.

At the command center, the drone shows them the size of Krakilla. Lee stands behind the drone pilot. He’s a bad back seat driver. Lee wants to drone to go lower because the creature isn’t responding. The pilot warns him, “There’s a lot of chop on the surface. If I go any lower, the drone might hit the water.” You know what’s going to happen, right? Old Lee takes control of the handle and the drone eats it when a tentacles comes up and smacks is. “I don’t suppose you got another drone that ready to…” Old Lee stammers.

Tim tells them to get a warning out to those vessels. Down below, Cate is armed with a fire extinguisher. Suddenly, the Trilobilla gets shot and we see that Kentaro and May have some to join Cate. Cate smacks it around with the fire extinguisher and Kentaro shoots it again. The injured Trilobilla emits and ear-shattering scream. The vibration shakes the ship and reaches Krakilla. Keiko notices on the radar screen that Krakilla is turning around, causing big waves to crash into the ships.

Back in Santa Soledad in Chile, 1957, Lucia explains they must appease the great god of the sea. The villagers have painted out their eyes black and the rest of their faces white. They dance around the sacrificial stone. Keiko gets up to dance but there’s something wrong. As Young Lee and Keiko feel their mutual physical attraction, the villagers bring a large fish and hang it over the stone. Lee wants to leave as a man uses a knife to gut the fish. The blood runs down the ritual stone.

Back at Outpost 18, Kentaro contacts the command center about the Trilobilla. “There’s a creature on the ship.”

Cate explains, “It was one of those bug things that came out of the Rift on Skull Island. It got on board somehow.”

Up at the command center, they understand the Krakilla is coming for the Trilobilla.

Tim and Kentaro lug the Trilobilla on to a Zodiac that Old Lee is going to drive. The creature is not quite dead and scratches Old Lee. Just as the ship’s engines die, Old Lee takes the Trilobilla out of the Outpost and away. When he dumps it into the water, the creature revives and heads to Krakilla.

Back to Santa Soledad in Chile, 1957, Lucia reminds them she tried to get them to leave but tells them the village’s secret must remain a secret. Now in the cave there are not just vibrations but something is erupting from the earth. Thousands of Trilobilla come out of the caves, run over the village where all the villagers have locked themselves in.

And now we’re back to Outpost 18. Old Lee is in the Zodiac, attempting to lead Krakilla away. Finally we see the head of the Titan. Old Lee throws Trilobilla into the ocean but Krakilla causes a huge wave. Luckily Old Lee emerges and heads toward the Outpost. The Trilobilla heads to Krakilla.

Back in Santa Soledad in Chile, 1957, Krakilla comes to shore as the Trilobilla swarm toward it. Keiko and Lee knock on doors, but the villagers won’t let them in.

What does the title “Resonance” mean? I think it is both the “quality of evoking response” and the actual vibrations of the Trilobilla or Scarabs in the cave. And that links to a solution in Episode 3.